Peterson: AP goes PC on illegal immigrants

It reminds me of a recent decision by The Associated Press, the world’s largest news-gathering organization.

The AP now says news reporters no longer should use the term “illegal immigrants.”

Its guidance, which the Savannah Morning News and other media follow, is to call them “people entering a country illegally or without permission.”

This is not the first usage change the AP has counseled concerning immigration. Years ago, for example, it counseled reporters to quit using the term “illegal aliens,” even though one legitimate meaning of the term alien is foreigner.

That usage is increasingly archaic. These days, the word is — as often as not — modified by the word “space,” which reflects another recognized definition.

So calling people “illegal aliens” encourages us to envision them as beings with scales, horns and three eyes. The issue is — or at least ought to be — their legal status, not that they may speak a different language or have a different skin color or customs.

More recently, some people — mostly immigration activists — urged the AP to substitute “undocumented immigrant” for “illegal immigrant.” It balked, correctly noting that the proposed change simply didn’t adequately describe the issue. It isn’t whether such people possess legal papers; many, for example, have marriage certificates or car titles. Rather it’s whether it’s lawful for those people to be in this country. Support for AP’s new guideline flows from ethical and linguistic premises.

The ethical premise: It’s unfairly demeaning to say people who do something illegal are themselves illegal.

We don’t call Bernie Madoff an “illegal” for his Ponzi scheme, noted one critic of the term “illegal immigrants.” That critic may have a point — but not the one he sought to make. No, we mostly don’t call Madoff an illegal; we simply refer to him as a criminal, a crook — or a dirt bag.

Nor, others object, is “illegal immigrants” used to denote white immigrants from Canada or Europe who overstay their visas. But let’s get real; it’s not hard to suspect we’d dust off the I-word if there were 11 million or so such people.

Perhaps more telling is that no one has urged the AP to quit referring to illegal loggers, illegal vendors, illegal miners or illegal residents — often also called squatters.

That would be a tall order. Indeed, English and other languages are replete with nouns that refer to people — not always kindly — by what they do.

Even so, the linguistic objection runs roughly parallel to the ethical one. Certain activities are illegal, but not the people who engage in them — or so the argument goes. But as we’ve noted, the AP isn’t fastidious as it is when it describes those who engage in other illegal acts.

There is no need to question the AP’s claim that it’s not intentionally taking sides in the immigration debate. But it does seem to have been nudged by special-interest appeals for sensitivity more than by logic or common sense. Common sense, that is, in the sense of stupid is as stupid does — indeed, the common sense that has shaped much of our everyday language.

Yes, distinctions must be made. For example, not all people nabbed by border agents are “illegal immigrants.”

But that shouldn’t obscure the reality that millions of people residing in our country are — in the common-sense language most of us use — illegal immigrants. That is, they entered the cut United States illegally. There remains a serious debate about their future status. But requiring language that blurs the distinction between people who are here legally and those who aren’t doesn’t improve the quality of the debate.

As clunky as the new terminology may be, however, we’re probably stuck with it. The waters of change rush on inexorably, a 19th century writer once reminded us. But, even as they do, he added, we need not shout “hallelujah” to the river gods.

The AP notwithstanding, many folks may continue to suppose — not unreasonably — that stupid still is as stupid does.